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Blowout preventer still faulty, report finds

Safety equipment unprepared to handle catastrophe

Published: Thursday, June 5, 2014 at 12:17 p.m.

Last Modified: Thursday, June 5, 2014 at 9:37 p.m.

The same fatal flaws that ailed the blowout preventer lurking below the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig are just as prevalent today as they were on April 20, 2010, when a gas bubble exploded and released over 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Flames rise from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig April 21, 2010, the day after an explosion killed 11 crew members and caused a massive Gulf oil spill.

AP File

Those are the findings of a report released Thursday by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board that for first time reviewed complete sets of blowout preventer data from before and after the spill.

While it was a kick of high pressure oil and gas that caused an explosion that took 11 lives, it was the failure of the Deepwater Horizon’s blowout preventer, a device on the sea floor that is designed to seal shut subsea oil wells in the event of a problem, which allowed oil to flow freely into the Gulf.

The safety board released the first two volumes of a longer report on the BP oil spill at a news conference in Houston Thursday afternoon. Many of the findings and topics discussed in the report were not previously addressed.

“The problems with this blowout preventer were worse than we understood,” safety board managing director Daniel Horowitz told The Associated Press. “And there are still hazards out there that need to be improved if we are to prevent this from happening again.”

Contrary to prior reports released on the spill, the safety board concluded that the blind shear ram, which is designed to sever any drill pipe and seal the well in the event of a malfunction, was successfully closed despite one of the two activation systems being inoperable and out of service.

The deadman system, which is designed to automatically close the well if connection to the rig is lost, successfully engaged, the report reads.

The report suggests that faulty wiring on the only functional control pod on the well’s blowout preventer would have prevented even the one remaining system from closing if it hadn’t been for another unplanned failure.

The electric motor that controlled the valve activating the ram would was wired in reverse, the board said, causing the electrical coils to oppose one another. But because the battery powering the opposing coil had died, the single coil was able to close the ram, the board said.

That did not matter for long, however, as oil that had already escaped continued to move upward and create pressure inside the drill pipe. That pressure would eventually cause the drill pipe to bend and buckle, an incident the blowout preventer was not designed for.

The safety board indicated that such a failure could still cause a subsea blowout today.

Robert Bea, an engineering professor and expert in oil pipelines at the University of California Berkeley, praised the report and told The Associated Press that blowout preventers are like cruise ship lifeboats, crucial but used only as a last resort. In this case the blowout preventers “are deeply flawed. They’ve got holes,” said Bea, who was not involved in the new study.

Kevin Ewing, a Washington attorney who represents many oil drilling interests, told The Associated Press that well operators have improved their techniques. He cautioned against broad indictments on the safety of currently operating blowout preventers.

The first volume of the report dealt with process safety, or the combination of technical systems and working culture surrounding safety protocols and accident prevention.

“Process safety safeguards and inadequate management systems and processes meant to ensure safeguard effectiveness, human and organizational factors that created an environment ripe for error,” the report says.

At the time of the blowout, the Deepwater Horizon was in the process of a so-called temporary abandonment or temporary plugging of a newly drilled well that allows new equipment to be put into place to extract oil once it is found.

The report indicates that oil actually flowed from the well up into the riser pipe connecting to the rig for at least one hour before any automatic or manual attempt was made to seal the well using the blowout preventer.

At issue in these findings is the generally accepted drilling practices regarding the amount of drilling fluid, or mud, and the balance of pressure between this mud and the well.

The crew had been unable to detect a failure in the cement plug that had been installed below the well during the abandonment, the report says, and there were no established procedures for preventing a blowout during the cementing stage.

The report examines the relationship between the three main companies operating the rig at the time of the explosion: lease holder and operator BP, rig owner and operator Transocean, Halliburton and Halliburton subsidiary Sperry-Sun, which were providing materials and monitoring services at the time.

The companies have repeatedly blamed one another for failures during the blowout. In 2012 BP remained one of Transocean’s biggest customers, accounting for 11 percent of the Transocean’s total revenue that year, the report says.

The report also cites a lack of universal standards for temporary abandonment procedures.

“While U.S. offshore regulations have undergone important changes since Macondo, more can be done to ensure a focus on preventing major accident events and continually drive safety improvement,” the report says.

Staff Writer John Harper can be reached at 857-2209 or john.harper@houmatoday.com. Follow him on twitter @JC_HARP.

Procedures unprepared for catastrophe

The first volume of the report dealt with process safety, or the combination of technical systems and working culture surrounding safety protocols and accident prevention.

“Process safety safeguards and inadequate management systems and processes meant to ensure safeguard effectiveness, human and organizational factors that created an environment ripe for error,” the report reads.

At the time of the blowout on April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon was in the process of a so-called temporary abandonment, or temporary plugging of a newly drilled well that allows new equipment to be put into place to extract oil once it is found.

The report indicates that oil actually flowed from the well up into the riser pipe connecting to the rig for at least one hour before any automatic or manual attempt was made to seal the well using the blowout preventer.

At issue in these findings is the generally accepted drilling practices with regards to the amount of drilling fluid, or “mud”, and the balance of pressure between this mud and the well.

The crew had been unable to detect a failure in the cement plug that had been installed below the well during the abandonment, the report reads, and there were no established procedures for preventing a blowout during the cementing stage.

The report examines the relationship between the three main companies operating the rig at the time of the explosion: lease holder and operator BP, rig owner and operator Transocean, Halliburton and Halliburton subsidiary Sperry-Sun, which were providing materials as well as well monitoring services at the time.

The companies have repeatedly blamed one another for failures during the blowout. In 2012 BP remained one of Transocean's biggest customers, accounting for 11 percent of the Transocean's total revenue that year, the report says.

The report also cites a lack of universal standards for temporary abandonment procedures.

“While US offshore regulations have undergone important changes since Macondo, more can be done to ensure a focus on preventing major accident events and continually drive safety improvement,” the report says.

<p>The same fatal flaws that ailed the blowout preventer lurking below the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig are just as prevalent today as they were on April 20, 2010, when a gas bubble exploded and released over 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.</p><p>Those are the findings of a report released Thursday by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board that for first time reviewed complete sets of blowout preventer data from before and after the spill. </p><p>While it was a kick of high pressure oil and gas that caused an explosion that took 11 lives, it was the failure of the Deepwater Horizon's blowout preventer, a device on the sea floor that is designed to seal shut subsea oil wells in the event of a problem, which allowed oil to flow freely into the Gulf.</p><p>The safety board released the first two volumes of a longer report on the BP oil spill at a news conference in Houston Thursday afternoon. Many of the findings and topics discussed in the report were not previously addressed. </p><p>“The problems with this blowout preventer were worse than we understood,” safety board managing director Daniel Horowitz told The Associated Press. “And there are still hazards out there that need to be improved if we are to prevent this from happening again.”</p><p>Contrary to prior reports released on the spill, the safety board concluded that the blind shear ram, which is designed to sever any drill pipe and seal the well in the event of a malfunction, was successfully closed despite one of the two activation systems being inoperable and out of service.</p><p>The deadman system, which is designed to automatically close the well if connection to the rig is lost, successfully engaged, the report reads.</p><p>The report suggests that faulty wiring on the only functional control pod on the well's blowout preventer would have prevented even the one remaining system from closing if it hadn't been for another unplanned failure.</p><p>The electric motor that controlled the valve activating the ram would was wired in reverse, the board said, causing the electrical coils to oppose one another. But because the battery powering the opposing coil had died, the single coil was able to close the ram, the board said.</p><p>That did not matter for long, however, as oil that had already escaped continued to move upward and create pressure inside the drill pipe. That pressure would eventually cause the drill pipe to bend and buckle, an incident the blowout preventer was not designed for. </p><p>The safety board indicated that such a failure could still cause a subsea blowout today.</p><p>Robert Bea, an engineering professor and expert in oil pipelines at the University of California Berkeley, praised the report and told The Associated Press that blowout preventers are like cruise ship lifeboats, crucial but used only as a last resort. In this case the blowout preventers “are deeply flawed. They've got holes,” said Bea, who was not involved in the new study.</p><p>Kevin Ewing, a Washington attorney who represents many oil drilling interests, told The Associated Press that well operators have improved their techniques. He cautioned against broad indictments on the safety of currently operating blowout preventers.</p><p>The first volume of the report dealt with process safety, or the combination of technical systems and working culture surrounding safety protocols and accident prevention. </p><p>“Process safety safeguards and inadequate management systems and processes meant to ensure safeguard effectiveness, human and organizational factors that created an environment ripe for error,” the report says.</p><p>At the time of the blowout, the Deepwater Horizon was in the process of a so-called temporary abandonment or temporary plugging of a newly drilled well that allows new equipment to be put into place to extract oil once it is found.</p><p>The report indicates that oil actually flowed from the well up into the riser pipe connecting to the rig for at least one hour before any automatic or manual attempt was made to seal the well using the blowout preventer.</p><p>At issue in these findings is the generally accepted drilling practices regarding the amount of drilling fluid, or mud, and the balance of pressure between this mud and the well. </p><p>The crew had been unable to detect a failure in the cement plug that had been installed below the well during the abandonment, the report says, and there were no established procedures for preventing a blowout during the cementing stage.</p><p>The report examines the relationship between the three main companies operating the rig at the time of the explosion: lease holder and operator BP, rig owner and operator Transocean, Halliburton and Halliburton subsidiary Sperry-Sun, which were providing materials and monitoring services at the time. </p><p>The companies have repeatedly blamed one another for failures during the blowout. In 2012 BP remained one of Transocean's biggest customers, accounting for 11 percent of the Transocean's total revenue that year, the report says.</p><p>The report also cites a lack of universal standards for temporary abandonment procedures.</p><p>“While U.S. offshore regulations have undergone important changes since Macondo, more can be done to ensure a focus on preventing major accident events and continually drive safety improvement,” the report says.</p><p>Staff Writer John Harper can be reached at 857-2209 or john.harper@houmatoday.com. Follow him on twitter @JC_HARP.</p><h3>Procedures unprepared for catastrophe</h3>
<p>The first volume of the report dealt with process safety, or the combination of technical systems and working culture surrounding safety protocols and accident prevention. </p><p>“Process safety safeguards and inadequate management systems and processes meant to ensure safeguard effectiveness, human and organizational factors that created an environment ripe for error,” the report reads.</p><p>At the time of the blowout on April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon was in the process of a so-called temporary abandonment, or temporary plugging of a newly drilled well that allows new equipment to be put into place to extract oil once it is found.</p><p>The report indicates that oil actually flowed from the well up into the riser pipe connecting to the rig for at least one hour before any automatic or manual attempt was made to seal the well using the blowout preventer.</p><p>At issue in these findings is the generally accepted drilling practices with regards to the amount of drilling fluid, or “mud”, and the balance of pressure between this mud and the well. </p><p>The crew had been unable to detect a failure in the cement plug that had been installed below the well during the abandonment, the report reads, and there were no established procedures for preventing a blowout during the cementing stage.</p><p>The report examines the relationship between the three main companies operating the rig at the time of the explosion: lease holder and operator BP, rig owner and operator Transocean, Halliburton and Halliburton subsidiary Sperry-Sun, which were providing materials as well as well monitoring services at the time. </p><p>The companies have repeatedly blamed one another for failures during the blowout. In 2012 BP remained one of Transocean's biggest customers, accounting for 11 percent of the Transocean's total revenue that year, the report says.</p><p>The report also cites a lack of universal standards for temporary abandonment procedures.</p><p>“While US offshore regulations have undergone important changes since Macondo, more can be done to ensure a focus on preventing major accident events and continually drive safety improvement,” the report says.</p>